Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus sings praises of national health care

Blink-182 bassist Mark Hoppus and his family moved across the pond to London in August 2011 for a change of scenery from Southern California. In an interview with BBC Radio Five Live, Hoppus described his admiration for the U.K.’s National Health Service.

Mark Hoppus and his wife, Skye, say they support systems like the U.K.'s National Health Service. ( Frederik Brown/Getty)

“We’ve been living here since August, and we’ve had a few occasions to go to the NHS, and it is a far superior experience here than it is dealing with the bureaucracy of medicine in the United States,” Hoppus said to the BBC. ” Granted we’ve only had minor, you know, colds or scrapes, or stuff like that; we haven’t had any kind of, like, an operation, or anything that’s needed hospitalization.”

Opponents of socialized health care argue about wait times and poorer quality of service. Hoppus describes his experiences as nothing but positive.

“Just as far as going into the local surgery, you can walk right in, they see you right away,” Hoppus said. “The waiting times here, that I’ve experienced at the local clinics in the U.K., have been far shorter than the waiting times in the United States. The service has been great. The integration of your health records online … cause we’ve gone to a couple places in London, and then we were out in Bath one time, and had to go to this small hospital outside of Bath, and they had our entire medical history on file there. It’s worked really well for us. ”

Hoppus believes America needs to a deeper look at what other countries are doing.

“We’ve been commenting to our friends that the U.S. needs to look over here, and take some cues from what you guys are doing over here,” Hoppus said.

Blink-182 will be bringing their slick pop-punk to Europe this summer before embarking on a North American tour after. Read 29-95’s interview with Hoppus and guitarist Tom DeLonge from September here and a review of their last Houston show.